The present invention is a high-density pogo pin connector and a data gathering and analysis station making use of the same.
The manner in which electrical connectors are presently configured places an upper limit on the number of pins that may be connected over a given connector face surface area. This limitation on pin density results in a bulky construction for high pin count (ie, greater than 20 pins) connector designs. FIG. 1 shows a pin-to-pin socket structure that is typical for a prior art connector. The pin socket 2 includes one contact 4, in the general form of a leaf spring that touches the side of the mating pin 6. Accordingly, the pin 6 must which must fit snugly in pin socket 2 to ensure that contact 4 touches pin 6 when the connector halves are engaged. The need for a snug fit in turn creates a requirement that each pin 4 be positioned relative to its neighboring pins such that every pin precisely match in position the location of a pin socket. If one pin is misplaced or bent slightly, the entire connector will not mate and will not be usable. This requirement imposes a burdensome manufacturing task that tends to become impractical, and results in poor performance, for a pin density above about 10 per cm.sup.2.
The bulky construction of high pin count electrical connectors in turn forces an awkward and expensive configuration for some devices that make use of high pin count electrical connectors. For example, ultrasound-monitoring stations frequently come equipped with a number of specialized probes for performing different ultrasound scanning functions. As shown in FIG. 1 each probe 10 is fixedly attached to a cable 12 that bears a connector 14 for connecting to a mating connector 16 on the ultrasound monitoring station data analysis and display unit 18. This configuration is necessitated by the bulky nature of the cable connector pair 14 and 16. If the connector were located on the probe end of the cable, the probe would be rendered bulky and difficult to manipulate. Unfortunately, this configuration is expensive because it means that a separate cable must be provided for each one of the ultrasound probes. As each one of these cables costs on the order of $1000, this adds considerable expense to the ultrasound monitoring station. Moreover, because the lack of a sufficiently high pin density connector forces each ultrasound probe to be manufactured and sold bundled with a cable, as a single unit, a problem with either the probe or the cable necessitates the replacement of the entire probe/cable unit. Accordingly, a probe/cable unit must be replaced when the probe has been damaged, even if the cable portion is still fully operative and vice versa.